With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Ngamer11]

Thanagar is pretty anti-alien. Not to the point of outright discrimination to anyone who visits, but probably enough to always assume that if there's a problem, an alien (or lizarkon) is most likely to blame. They'll probably just get them to give a report before letting them go.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

Worse, probably. She did just cripple someone.

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Maybe use it as a teachable moment: "You're living in a World of Cardboard, so you need to learn control."

No, they staggered one step.

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Ah, my mistake, then. Same as that Power thing from last chapter.

They'll probably just get them to give a report before letting them go.

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Especially when they check and learn OL is a diplomat and Bleez is a celebrity. Maybe they'll ask for the thanagarian equivilant of an autograph.

 

[McGraw]

Switching to crumblers would be good, but I'm not sure that I want the thanagarians to know I have that capacity.

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Don't they already know from the Hawks' reports?

 

[moralrelativity]

constructs Too much

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Needs a full stop.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Thanagar is pretty anti-alien. Not to the point of outright discrimination to anyone who visits, but probably enough to always assume that if there's a problem, an alien (or lizarkon) is most likely to blame. They'll probably just get them to give a report before letting them go.

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No, no, they do discriminate. But even Hitler put Helene Mayer on the Olympic team. Sometimes aliens are useful. Generally not, but sometimes.

Needs a full stop.

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Thank you, corrected.

Don't they already know from the Hawks' reports?

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They don't know precisely how they work. They could learn if they had the opportunity to examine them closely. And he's not sure what level of detail has been reported or how much as been read/believed.

 

[Bramble Thorn]

Because English is actually three languages sitting on each other's shoulders wearing a trenchcoat as they go around mugging innocent lexicons for vocabulary. The fact that the Anglosphere is even mutually intelligible at this point is a testament to the British Empire's mail system.

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U.S. English, Canadian English, and the English from the place that cannot make up its mind whether it is England or the United Kingdom or Great Britain?

Does that mean those weird Aussies with their strange accents finally got kicked out of the Anglosphere?

I'd have thought it would have happened to the Scotts or the Irish first.

This Kara is in her late teens. She was attending space college.

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But Krypton recalled all colonists and ships to the homeworld, and intentionally turned their back from space. How can she be going to space college then? I mean if they actually had a space college to sent Kara to, then they might not have become statically extinct when the planet exploded.

Why are people still talking about Boss Smiley? Wasn't it pretty explicitly explained that the meeting with him was a total fake and that their was absolutely no evidence of him being more than a minor demon that preys on politicians?

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His sigil was on the binding rings of the matrix machines, but the king angel responsible for the kidnapping and attempted coup didn't even rememner him. Implying he had access to enough stolen theurgical power to command Asmodel (who probably recruited Boss Smiley and commanged the inclusion of his sigil) to forget be existed. This turing one of the most powerful angels in Heaven from a aspiring dictator into an unknowing slave.

That is presumably a lot of power. And since Asmodel's betrayal was being prepared long before Paul showed up in either timeline (One of the dead theurgists was a Pope who died decades ago), it and Smiley should be present in both. And since the plot was never uncovered in Gravyen's timeline and Boss Smiley's source of holy power freed from their Lotus Eater prisons, It is likely the Boss Smiley in Grayvens timeline still has access to immense Theurgic power. And since nobody knows about him in that timeline, nobody has made preparations against him.

Once again, a guy who at this point is all but entirely composed of matter and energy originating from Universe 16 and who's soul is most certainly comprised of a combination earthly magic and universal avarice is not someone that one should assume is not in Destiny's book.

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That challenger was not in Destiny's book. She was made of native matter and energy, but that didn't matter. The question is how/when/if Destiny's updates. I'd think it is normally insensitive to time. If you are not in his book, you are not there past, present, or future. Nothing you do really matters to getting you in the book (or the challengers would have been written back in the book as they interacted with other people who were.)

Like unless whoever writes the book updated it, if you are not in the book you won't be no matter what happens, the author never made an entry about you.

I think Mr Zoat is being intentionally obtuse about how it works. Like when someone talked about Grayven (meaning the renegade SI) being in the book, he did not confirm the truth either way, instead only saying that Grayven (the son of Darkseid Renegade Paul is Mantling pretending to be) certainly is, when that was not the matter under debate at all.

 

[Mr Zoat]

But Krypton recalled all colonists and ships to the homeworld, and intentionally turned their back from space. How can she be going to space college then? I mean if they actually had a space college to sent Kara to, then they might not have become statically extinct when the planet exploded.

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In the sense that it wasn't on Earth. It was a DBZ Abridged thing, like Space Australia and Space ducks.

 

[Handlewithcare]

So what are these Man-Hawks? My bet is on secret surveillance robots.

Also, did I miss the explanation why Kara and Hector where there?

 

[Mquz]

In the sense that it wasn't on Earth. It was a DBZ Abridged thing, like Space Australia and Space ducks.

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Fun fact : Space ducks are a Thing in DC. Sometimes, I assume, they're eaten by space whales. This is why Lobo tends to avoid poaching them. After all, they're ducks out in space, zooming around protecting the human race.

Absolutely everything in this comment makes complete and utter sense. It is not just an experiment to see how much nonsense I can put into one comment at 3 AM and see if it makes sense. *sarcasm evident* Also, Mel Brooks' Jews in Space song has been stuck in my head for years now, slowly driving me crazy (and I know that sentence at the end isn't from it exactly, and hope even with the semi - reference it's not offensive (don't see why it would be)).

 

[Ngamer11]

No, no, they do discriminate. But even Hitler put Helene Mayer on the Olympic team. Sometimes aliens are useful. Generally not, but sometimes.

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They going to arrest them on trumped up charges? This looks like a chance for the Thanagarian Empire to get its teeth kicked in by the OLC. If that does happen, I wonder what Hawkman will do, because I'm pretty sure Hawkwoman will just try to at least maim Paul for doing that.

 

[Mquz]

They going to arrest them on trumped up charges? This looks like a chance for the Thanagarian Empire to get its teeth kicked in by the OLC. If that does happen, I wonder what Hawkman will do, because I'm pretty sure Hawkwoman will just try to at least maim Paul for doing that.

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I don't think the OLC has any reason to alienate the Thanagarian empire this early. Neither does the Thanagarian Empire the OLC. Especially when Paul is unlikely to be actually arrested / detained.

 

[Ngamer11]

I don't think the OLC has any reason to alienate the Thanagarian empire this early. Neither does the Thanagarian Empire the OLC. Especially when Paul is unlikely to be actually arrested / detained.

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Fair enough. I wonder how Kara and Hector got into that situation in the first place though. They were supposed to have a guide, who doesn't appear to be around anymore. Is this all a coincidence or a setup? Hopefully it's just a coincidence but I'm not holding my breath. I would also like to get an In-universe explanation for those Manhawks, or at least an explanation from Mr Zoat. Are they some other kind of thanagarian or subspecies? Genetic experiment gone wrong? Whatever the case may be, Paul is gonna have his hands full both trying to avoid antagonizing the Thanagarian Empire, while protecting his less combat capable companions (inexperienced Kara and out of shape Hector).

 

[Sonder]

I'm starting to suspect that Zoat has a list of stock cliffhangers he rolls on whenever he feels like Paul has done too well for himself.

Just to make his life harder.

 

[Navi-Hank]

The last sentence was structured wierd. I think it would work better if he was exasperated, rather than suprised. Like; "Then the thanagarian patrol drops down, weapons trained on each of us, of course." Or something like that.

 

[SirKaid]

U.S. English, Canadian English, and the English from the place that cannot make up its mind whether it is England or the United Kingdom or Great Britain?

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English is the story of some sort of Celtic language happily skipping along the street until it got pulled into a dark alley and violated by Latin, German, French, and Old Norse. After it staggered out of the alley and got cleaned up it built the most powerful navy in the world and went around mugging other languages from all over the world for spare vocabulary.

Calling it three languages in a trenchcoat is practically generous. Really it's more like five languages and a wallet full of grammar with suspicious reddish brown stains on it.

 

[l---erddad---l]

And since nobody knows about him in that timeline, nobody has made preparations against him.

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I feel like this is one of those situations where Zoat will avert the problem because of the two SI's different abilities. Grayven is a New God, so I imagine that he could pull some esoteric bullshit related to his domain to not get screwed over by Angel's Source-Abilities. Either that, or Boss Smiley just never shows up because the very slow pace that Grayven is doing is slow enough that Smiley feels that he has time to figure out a way to cause Grayven to die/go insane/whatever and all his progress to be destroyed before ti gets too bad.

 

[Bramble Thorn]

Hector raises his forearms and fires a blast from his forearm-mounted electrolasers at the second Man-Hawk. It staggers sideways a pace before reorientating on him and screeching again, which… Actually, yes, the flayed face does make it more intimidating.

-that might explain what happened to my filament.

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What, the flayed facemask intimidated your orange filament into submission?

You are being really unclear here.

...Unless this is just you trolling Vaermina with increasingly ludacris counters to orange light as time goes on.

 

[Soul Shocker]

What, the flayed facemask intimidated your orange filament into submission?

You are being really unclear here.

...Unless this is just you trolling Vaermina with increasingly ludacris counters to orange light as time goes on.

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It was interrupted by description of the events occurring.

And-. I can't look inside them. I suppose-

Hector raises his forearms and fires a blast from his forearm-mounted electrolasers at the second Man-Hawk. It staggers sideways a pace before reorientating on him and screeching again, which… Actually, yes, the flayed face does make it more intimidating.

-that might explain what happened to my filament.

He can't look inside them, probably N metal, which might stop filaments

 

[Mr Zoat]

What, the flayed facemask intimidated your orange filament into submission?

You are being really unclear here.

...Unless this is just you trolling Vaermina with increasingly ludacris counters to orange light as time goes on.

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No, the little '-' symbol indicates that it's a continuation of the previous thought.

 

[Stsword]

So what are these Man-Hawks? My bet is on secret surveillance robots.

Also, did I miss the explanation why Kara and Hector where there?

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Manhawks are giant birds who are people who fly through outer space under their own power generally to steal things, unlike Thanagarians who are bird people, who wear masks to mimic the native lifeforms.

In one version, they're the ones who brought crime to the utopia that was Thanagar, and were the reason the wingmen police were formed.

In Brightest Day, they're supposedly what humans mated with on Hawkworld to open the portal to Thanagar, which implies that Thanagarians are manhawk-human hybrids, oh and that manhawks aren't aliens but the descendents of hawks from Earth, like the Lizarkons are descendents of lizards from Earth, and the lionmanes are descendents of lions.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

Thats not Young Justice? And you're not Crowley!

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I'm not?

Pats Self Down

I'm Not! Oh Thank Eris!

As for it not being Young Justice, well that clip is one of the better examples of A Superman doing the "red wave of burning death". While different Universes don't exactly scale to each other, Such as when Gravyen noticed Justice Lords Kara having the 'stealth' heat vision of Superman's animated series, it's a comparison point. YJ is a bit thin on showing the exact limits on Clark's powers because he's not a center piece to the story telling, and Conner's powers don't exactly scale to his due to cloning human DNA in the mix, and not being entirely familiar with them when he does get to use them with the Shields.

Of course the alternative is a Superman that, using Super Speed Eye Movement makes like the worlds fastest Laser cutter, works his way back and forth in a few nanoseconds for a similar effect.

Spoiler: Warning High Pitched Audio

 

[Mquz]

I'm not?

Pats Self Down

I'm Not! Oh Thank Eris!

As for it not being Young Justice, well that clip is one of the better examples of A Superman doing the "red wave of burning death". While different Universes don't exactly scale to each other, Such as when Gravyen noticed Justice Lords Kara having the 'stealth' heat vision of Superman's animated series, it's a comparison point. YJ is a bit thin on showing the exact limits on Clark's powers because he's not a center piece to the story telling, and Conner's powers don't exactly scale to his due to cloning human DNA in the mix, and not being entirely familiar with them when he does get to use them with the Shields.

Of course the alternative is a Superman that, using Super Speed Eye Movement makes like the worlds fastest Laser cutter, works his way back and forth in a few nanoseconds for a similar effect.

Spoiler: Warning High Pitched Audio

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That wouldn't heat a thing sufficiently to burn through it. He could burn patterns, but it takes some time to burn all the way through something. He's not dealing with paper here. That laser would give 3rd degree burns, but it probably wouldn't cut far into human skin.

 

[Mquz]

Manhawks are giant birds who are people who fly through outer space under their own power generally to steal things, unlike Thanagarians who are bird people, who wear masks to mimic the native lifeforms.

In one version, they're the ones who brought crime to the utopia that was Thanagar, and were the reason the wingmen police were formed.

In Brightest Day, they're supposedly what humans mated with on Hawkworld to open the portal to Thanagar, which implies that Thanagarians are manhawk-human hybrids, oh and that manhawks aren't aliens but the descendents of hawks from Earth, like the Lizarkons are descendents of lizards from Earth, and the lionmanes are descendents of lions.

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Them? Not the fact they worshiped a Cthulhu stand-in?

 

[Silveraith]

Though she has changed her posture somewhat, and I can see her checking her surroundings more than she did before we came down where.

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Here.

Downsiders use more physical currency that upsiders.

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Than.

 

[Buggy123]

That wouldn't heat a thing sufficiently to burn through it. He could burn patterns, but it takes some time to burn all the way through something. He's not dealing with paper here. That laser would give 3rd degree burns, but it probably wouldn't cut far into human skin.

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That laser wouldn't burn all the way through someone, but scale it up to something thousands or millions of times more powerful a-la Kryptonian heat vision and you probably could ablate all the way through a human (or human-ish monster).

Granted, it'd really be closer to "explode" than "ablate" at that point. That's kinda what extremely high power lasers do; if you completely vaporize (technically "subliminate") a person in a fraction of a second, you now have a blob of gas which is extremely hot and has roughly the size and mass of a person.

That is a more polite term for "a massive explosion".

 

[Pinklestia]

So... I am the only one who doesn't really care about the Bird Men because they were bad guys in Justice League or what?

 

[Mr Zoat]

Here.
Than.

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[ElvishPresley]

...Unless this is just you trolling Vaermina with increasingly ludacris counters to orange light as time goes on.

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Eminemtly, Zoat is trying to annoy his most notorious (BIG nonetheless) fan, who dang can find something to fuck with the in-story logic.

But that's just my 50 cents on these martial matters.

 

[Stsword]

Eminemtly, Zoat is trying to annoy his most notorious (BIG nonetheless) fan, who dang can find something to fuck with the in-story logic.

But that's just my 50 cents on these martial matters.

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I'm kind of going with the theory that the Manhawks are worshippers of Thasaro and that they skin people and wear their faces as mystic talismans that ward them.

The point of masks is to hide one's identities after all.

Them? Not the fact they worshiped a Cthulhu stand-in?

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The cthulhu stand in was in the cartoon, that no one who writes the comics apparently gave a shit about, since comic book Nth Metal isn't transuranic iron, comic Thanagarians don't have wings, and were never mythos worshippers.

Although amusingly enough, I understand one of the Seven Devils of Thanagar is named Shoggoth.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

That laser wouldn't burn all the way through someone, but scale it up to something thousands or millions of times more powerful a-la Kryptonian heat vision and you probably could ablate all the way through a human (or human-ish monster).

Granted, it'd really be closer to "explode" than "ablate" at that point. That's kinda what extremely high power lasers do; if you completely vaporize (technically "subliminate") a person in a fraction of a second, you now have a blob of gas which is extremely hot and has roughly the size and mass of a person.

That is a more polite term for "a massive explosion".

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Well Said. As OL described, Mr Kent's got some capital ship grade lasers behind those trendy glasses. I've only personally played with ones in a few watts range, lower end commercial ones are closer to 40 to 50 watts doing paper and wood. Steel cutting lasers are up in the 500 Watt range.

Flipping over to one of the more useful collections of esoteric information in the internets, Project Rho Useful Tables we can grab a rough idea of how much energy it takes to vaporize a human being, at 3.0 × 1009​ Joules (if you just want dust). Watts = Joules Per Second.

A 100% efficient steel cutting commercial laser at 500 watts COULD eventually vaporize a human being, given they didn't move for a while ( about 1.9 Years, by my back of the napkin math.) Much Longer due to laser ablation, refraction, inefficient energy use and a host of other problems.

So, that's the yard stick.

One of the better examples Zoat gave us describing Mr Kent's Powers in use was back when he was doing some dynamic engineering regarding a flooded river system. We didn't get hard numbers, but he was flying in, melting bedrock with heat vision, hand digging trenches and flying back, all within a few moments as he removed and then caught his JL communicator.

Now either Supes had his eyeballs set to wide beam, or he was melting that tunnel of rock from a single focus point and allowing thermal bloom and heat transfer/ convection to melt the surrounding rock. At the energy levels required to do that in the space of time required....it really doesn't matter anymore, as you've stopped being a Newtonian physics problem and started being a Particle physics problem.

Closest comparison I could make would be Project Plowshare, the US's studies into using nukes for 'peaceful' stuff, like making really big holes in the ground, oil and gas recovery, and generally making the world more radioactive in the process. So...we're in the Kiloton Nuclear bomb territories here. For Superman, we're in Gigawatt range of lasers on the low end.

Easily enough to vaporize a person, and the rest of the crowd, in the blink of an eye.